On this week in class we were dealing with Nursery Rhymes. These are songs written as poems structures for pre-school children (from 2 to 6 years old) and normally expressed through movements originated in Great Britain from the 18th and 19th Century. They are used in every daily classroom of the English speaking countries and teachers use them frequently. There are lots of nursery rhymes as the most known ‘Mother Goose’, ‘Old McDonald had a farm’,etc …. As we have noticed, nursery rhymes are quite beneficial for children and they develop many skills such as:
Language skills: Children learn new vocabulary in an indirect way by singing the song at the same time. They acquire new structures and vocabulary which are not common or usually used in daily life.
Listening skills: Children acquire the language by listening, paying attention to what they hear.
Memory and imaginative skills: This is crucial for children to imagine what they are listening or singing, they imagine the story in their own way. As well, nursery rhymes are created always with repeated structures, which is advantageous for children to keep the story in mind.
What is more, nursery rhymes are related with multiple intelligences such as the musical (rhythm and harmonic) which involves sensitivity to rhythm, tone, timber…; and the bodily- kinaesthetic intelligence because it involves a physical action. In addition, nursery rhymes are linked with phonics, phonemes to help students by repeating and reinforcing the words which contain some tricky phonemes.
On the other hand, as we have seen in class Nursery Rhymes have a double meaning such as ‘Three Blind Mice’ or ‘Mary, Mary, Quite contrary’ published in 1744. This last has a religious and historical meaning furthermore than lyrics. The known british nursery rhyme ‘Georgie Porgie’ (‘Georgie Porgie, Puddin’ and Pie, kissed the girls and made them cry, when the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away’), actually seems to mean ‘a torrid gay sex scandal which involves King Charles I’.
So with all of this I claim to say that nursery rhymes are perfect and fascinating for children to learn. But what catch my attention is that they are a good resource to learn the history of a country, or to observe the perspective towards the monarchy, society, power on those times.
Nursery rhymes are fun, so why not to start by singing them? Ending a class, or just using them for learning during a class can be so funny, children love moving, dancing, and singing, so why not to take advantage for this?
I am going to leave you some of my favourite Nursery Rhymes:
The wheels on the bus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbFrN1FL6tE
Pat-a-cake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGxMzHZ9eKw
Thank you for standing by,
References:
http://www.bidorbuy.co.za/article/5978/Advantages_of_Nursery_Rhymes_to_Little_Children
Hello Beatriz, I like your post. Your reflection makes me think a lot about the different competence that we could work while we are playing nursery rhymes. Also I love the idea of realize that I can work with multiple intelligences in a very easy way.
On the other hand, I think it is very interesting to take into account the historical background of these songs, but I can avoid thinking that it is really inappropriate make our primary students sing nursery rhymes about a sex´s scandals for example. In any case, I love this idea of use the songs to work on the contents, but as much as I know, all the contents are more related with high school contents. Did you ever hear any nursery rhyme to use with primary education contents?
Finally and in addition of your post, I will like to say that I think that nursery rhymes are perfect to create classroom routines. I my last practicum, my teacher did it, and it works really well. It was good because while we were working on foreign language, also we were changing the rhythm of the class (to maintain the motivation in the students), and preparing the students to change the subject. I encourage you and readers to try it.
I wait your next post.
Hi Carla!
From my point of view, Nursery rhymes are more appropiated for pre-school and Infant education, but of course teachers can use them in Primary Education anyway (especially in the first cycle) . I’m going to leave you some Nursery rhymes to work with in class:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BZVg8FFjy8&index=11&list=PLqq__EyhXuc5i1NiXXCXeeI-jBRI2Fgfr
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c21bK7ALGHk&list=PLqq__EyhXuc5i1NiXXCXeeI-jBRI2Fgfr&index=8
We can use the first for teaching contents about feelings connected with expressions, included in the curriculum (Happy -> A happy face, Sad -> A sad face…). As well, they learn verbs related with the body (‘stomp your feet, clap your hands’). And the second nursery rhyme is called ‘ Yankee doodle’ which is quite famous in USA and all children know it.
Thanks for commenting on my post, hope you like it!
you and YOUR readers*… sorry for the mistake
Hello Bea! I completely agree with you. Nursery rhymes are beneficial for children if we want to make them develop skills such as language, listening, memory or imaginative skills. When they are listening or singing them, they are enjoying their time whereas acquiring new structures, vocabulary, practicing listening and developing their memory and imagination. They are learning at the same time they are having a fun time.
I can only see one drawback about nursery rhymes; maybe they have to learn and repeat some words that they do not understand, but this is not a real problem if we try to find a solution. For instance, we can give them language scaffolding or make gestures while we are singing.
Based on my experience, children love nursery rhymes. Some months ago, I taught English to children in infant education (they only had 3 years old) and I used nursery rhymes to teach them the numbers up to five and they seemed to go mad when I put the songs; they started to dance and jump all over the room. For this reason, I strongly feel you are right, and it could be a great idea to take advantage of it and start or end the class by singing or also to use them to establish routines.
Here you have two of the nursery rhymes I used with my pupils:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhCzYK5JCBM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0NHrFNZWh0
Bye!
Hi Eva!
You are right when saying that they are not going to understand every word, and as you say it is not a problem because here appears the role of the teacher to give children some scaffolding, or reviewing vocabulary before singing, etc…
I’ve just heard the two songs, and I love them
Thanks for commenting on my post!
Excellent post and great exchange of ideas. Carla, your comment is really relevant and appropriate. Eva, thanks for sharing your experience. Well done, explorers!